It appears that the new Xbox LIVE update, which will introduce support for the new XGD3 disk format, might prevent a very small number of Xbox 360 owners from playing retail game discs.

Kotaku were contacted by a reader who received an email from Microsoft informing him that it had detected via Xbox LIVE that his Xbox (a 60GB Pro from 2009) was affected. Microsoft has offered to replace his console with a new Xbox 360S with 250GB hard drive at no expense.

The email has since been verified by Xbox Support via their official Twitter account.

The XGD3 format will allow for additional storage space on a game disc, and will provide additional levels of copy production.

The Xbox LIVE Spring update will be rolled out between May 19 to May 30.
[/p]

Well I imagine games like Final Fantasy XIII would fit on one disc, as well as a lot of other PS3 to 360 games.
I don't know what capacity XGD3 is though.

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure FFXIII is like over 40GB. I don't think these new discs will be able to fit multidisc games (Mass Effect 2, Lost Odyssey, LA Noire) onto one disc. I think they added an extra GB or something. I read about it a while back but I'm a bit fuzzy on the details.

EDIT: If anything, these new discs would just allow a little extra space for more anti-piracy or for a little more game data.

Very impressed with this (even though I don't have an Xbox), slightly surprised thatt Microsoft are taking the first move, and contacting those affected, rather than waiting for those affected to contact them.

I'm in the program and the disc works well on my 2010 model, and my Original launch model (modded), and they both play older as well as newer retail games just fine so I have a feeling that the older hardware revisions aren't really an issue.

The way I see it, they're trying as hard as possible to eliminate the DriveMod-vulnerable 360'ties from the market. It's the first time ever when a company releases an updated format of their discs that *doesn't* work on some of their hardware, at least first I can think of.

Might unbox my 360 and hook it up again, see if get the message (have not unpacked since I moved house a month ago) I have one of the really old models without hdmi, so maybe it's got the same problem.

Would be good to know what drive cannot use these new discs ( I'm assuming it's due to the DVD drive that some models need to be replaced?)